Barney's Blog

Gizmodo Gizwrongo

You've probably heard the story about Gizmodo getting its greedy little mitts on an iPhone prototype. The phone was left in a bar by an Apple employee (not sure if he's still employed), picked up by a patron and sold to the Giz for a cool five grand. The site then posted all the details, creating a firestorm far hotter than deserved.

Apple has never liked to have its news leaked before it is good and ready and isn't afraid to threaten journalists with high-priced Apple lawyers.

In this case, it sicced the cops on the Gizmodo editor, which raided his house and confiscated his computers -- after he gave the phone back to Apple!

Apple and the cops clearly overreacted, but what Giz did was also clearly wrong. It bought a device from someone who didn't own it. This is morally, if not legally, wrong.

Over my 26 years as a computer journalist, I've revealed a lot of things Microsoft and others preferred be kept quiet. I was only threatened with a lawyer once, and it sure wasn't from Microsoft!

I've never had Apple as a beat, which probably saved me millions in legal fees.

Microsoft is planning to activate "Insights for MyAnalytics" sometime late this month for most Office 365 users, but the ability of organizations to manage this feature won't be available until possibly mid-May.